Press release

To anyone willing to listen

Certain sectors of the industry have attempted to put dairy farmers against workers, claiming that the industry could not pay higher prices for raw material due to the high labor costs it paid in wages and contributions to union funds.

In response to this claim, we would like to clarify the following in particular:

1)   The incidence of total labor costs on the cost of industry products is about 12 percent, and this percentage has remained steady for the last 10 years or so.

2)   Ten years ago the industry processed some 8.5 billion liters of milk per year, and today it processes around 12 billion liters. The number of operators currently employed by the industry has not varied significantly from the number of workers employed a decade ago, thus revealing a 30 percent improvement in productivity with respect to labor costs.

3)   Items (1) and (2) above show that the wage and benefit gains obtained by workers, either directly through wage raises or indirectly through contributions to the union, which uses such contributions to provide services for its members, are just enough to preserve the percentage of wealth redistribution maintained in the industry for the past decade.

4)   There are companies, especially some large companies, with difficulties dating back more than a decade - almost two decades, in fact - which cannot be attributed to workers or dairy farmers, but are the result of unwise strategic decisions made by the industry in the past and which have generated serious economic and financial problems, with the ensuing underlying conditions that have nothing to do with labor or raw material costs.

5)   Conversely, there are also major dairy companies whose rational use of resources, combined with sound management, has afforded them highly profitable returns, putting them above any risks. However, favored by the restrictive policy applied to raw material prices by heavily indebted companies, which set the prices paid to dairy farmers, these highly profitable companies choose not to improve the prices they offer so as to further increase their profit margins.

6)   The industry contributions for union funds secured by ATILRA through collective bargaining to be used to finance benefits for union members are a legitimate gain achieved through negotiations and agreed with business and commerce chambers under the provisions established by Law 14,250. The relevant authority has reviewed the legal and formal aspects of this gain, which has been ratified and duly published in the Official Gazette. The contributions thus made are not squandered or channeled to benefit anyone in particular, but are allocated to pay for healthcare and other vital services for workers and their families. It should be noted that when the current steering committee took office, our healthcare service was in debt for over seven million U.S. dollars in medical and healthcare bills alone. This not only entailed a situation of financial distress but, more importantly, left our beneficiaries - the industry’s workers - vulnerable in terms of healthcare coverage.

The industry knows perfectly well that it would be impossible to provide health coverage for our beneficiaries with only ordinary contributions received by the healthcare service. The industry is well aware that a young couple with two children pays some 2,000 pesos a month for a prepaid service to receive a coverage similar to ours.

A large part of the extraordinary contributions are used to complement health services, but also to provide training and capacity-building for the industry’s workers. The industry is also fully aware that we provide healthcare coverage fro many workers and their families even when their employers fail to make the corresponding contributions.

Lastly, a rational use of resources enables our organization to use part of those funds to benefit society in general, by supporting cultural, sports and solidarity activities, because ATILRA understands that as a union that represents well-paid workers it has an obligation to benefit the community its members are part of.

In sum: we support the legitimate demands of dairy farmers, which in no way go against the interests of dairy industry workers. We stand firmly behind the political, economic and social agenda of the current government, of which we feel a part of, and we do not waive our right to fight for what we are entitled to as dairy industry workers.

NATIONAL STEERING COMMITTEE

ATILRA